This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9 billion project to build the Barclays Center arena and 16 high-rise buildings at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake in 15 towers. New York State still calls it Atlantic Yards. Contact: AtlanticYardsReport[at]hotmail.com

In the Atlantic Yards case, the Court of Appeals ruled that long-established precedents allowed the use of eminent domain to aid a private development, that the public benefit required of such a project should be regarded in a broad way, and, most important, that the courts should not second-guess a state agency's decision to declare an area blighted, except in the most extreme cases.

The majority in the Manhattan appellate court seemed to ignore the direction of the state's highest court. The majority in the 3-2 decision disparaged the public benefit of the Columbia project and clearly second-guessed the blight finding in a way that would seem to directly contravene the instructions of the higher court.

Crain's is right that the two rulings seem in conflict--though it would be possible for the Court of Appeals to uphold the Columbia decision on narrow grounds.

What Crain's doesn't grapple with is the bad faith found by the court in the Columbia case, or its finding that underutilization--a factor in the dubious blight finding for Atlantic Yards, as well--was deemed illegitimate.

Apparently Crain's thinks there's no need to reform eminent domain, especially the definition of blight, in New York State.